Poetry

Sunday 3 July 2022

Holy Grail

 Cats cry, or may be babies

Flats seize

The heart of me 

On stairs of level moors

windows clean and bottles blow

Meadows breeze, they stone the crows

In fields knees are boughed and bow

As peasants go gleaning up the rows


Corns stalks shatter and collide

In a kaleidoscope of sties

And pigs which scatter heads of corn

And all the merry month of June is born


Rising like a phoenix bright

From long summer lawns of flight

In equestrian gardens delight

The aristocracy keep the knight

At the table in the castle

For a white and sable parcel

Before him lies

A present disguised

But is this the Holy Grail?


What sunlight shifts, and cloud swirls burn

Like coffee cups

In auburn herbs

And marches of the armies come

Drum and trumpet played as one

Viola and the violin

The oboes, horns and tubas sing


Twenty four miles

 twenty four miles

Like a wild goose

I chased you

Across the field and the fen

Oh like a sore moose I shot you

Across a blazing trail

twenty four miles I'm gonna get you

twenty four hours to go


I got my goldfish

And my moonshine

I got my pocket knife

And my redline

You're gonna cross me 

You're gonna get mine

Twenty four miles to go



Love fossil

 You've got propane eyes

Butane soul

Methane mind

Well your gas works blow


Your oil well heart

Sure struck gold

Pumping blood

All over the street


And your fracked senses

In the earth they rolled

And heaven was a wind farm

Of your thought control

 Can you tell I've been out a mile

Out of my depth 

In your desert of love fossil fuel


Well your love is a fossil long buried it is said

Maybe one day it will be turned into lead

Maybe it could run a combustion engine

But haven't you heard love's gone electric


It's a beast with green eyes, fighting in the storm

Where jealousy's trees are being ripped and torn

Out at the roots oh from when love was born

Oh your dinosaur love is a fossil I'd have sworn

Fairy tale blues

 As I slip free of Peter pan

See him go back into the night

Where he first began

And wash Wendy's hands in the dishes

Of Woman and man

I set up the moon

And I take down the sun

And the witches of Eastwick

They can't follow my plan


And I put Dorothy's red shoes

back under her bed

And I lead the lion

To the land of the dead

Well I have the blues in fairy tale land again


And I set the stone of Rosetta

In the mind of the child

Who wished upon a twinkling star

I fought the urge to be wild

With Cinderella and her sisters

When she came home with a Pumpkin Prince

But I've got the fairy tale blues again


I'm not mad at you Little beau peep

It's just the sheep that you keep

They can't help me to sleep


I'm not sad like you little boy blue

Just pull your thumb out of the plumb

And turn your face to the sun

It's time to stand up like a man


I wish you were free little mermaid

To swim your way back to the sea

But if you find the key, why not give it to me

For I've got the fairy tale blues again


Saturday 2 July 2022

Like a ball and chain

 Like a ball and chain

I keep carrying you around

Oh is it all in vain

That I take you with me 

Through the wind and rain

Oh like a ball and chain

You keeping knocking on my door

Keep knocking on my brain

I try to let you go but

In the end my friend

You know we're

Tied together like a ball and chain


I look left and you swing right

I invite a guest you say stay the night

I think you're mean, but you don't think I'm right

I haul you over the coals by the firelight

And if we can be examined, and it all proves profane

well we'll be standing at our trial like a ball and chain


Only you can set me free

I have the lock but you have the key

Come on now release us from this awful plight

If I am your ball tomorrow, you'll be my chain tonight

Just raise the hammer and strike against the steel

You know it isn't any wonder, to feel the way I feel

You cannot hear the thunder or see the lightning bolts reveal

The world ablaze, and cast asunder as at the turning of a wheel

Well turn it, drive it yonder across the harvest field

We'll collect the pieces fonder that fall like heaven's zeal

And I am left to ponder this shame over my pain

But it isn't any wonder when we're like a ball and chain 

Captain planet

 I have seen the rising of the moon

And I have leant into the arms 

Of the sea


I have known that this life only

Is lie in a tragedy 


Captain planet he's a hero

Gonna take pollution down to

Zero


Gonna tell you this life is framed

For the murder of futures unnamed


He's gonna wave the chequered flag

He's gonna leave you to carry the bag


He's off on holiday and round the bend

And this way or that way he'll be your friend


Captain planet, I wish I knew you

And could let down my hair in a new hair do. 


A lad in the levels

 Aladdin in the levels


There was a lad who lived near the levels. This lad one day

Decided the revels had been let out on his virginia scout. So he climbed

Down the vines and onto the peat swamp


The long lines of peat excavations lay before him

Like the grave mounds of great leviathons or sea monsters from the deep

And as he wandered over them, his tired mind did sleep

And he had to lie down for some rest


Shortly after doing this atop a mass grave of peat

He dreamt he was riding upon a whales back through the sea

And the blow hole was spout water and air

Suddenly what he knew was he must go down there

And so he did, he just slid down like a spiral stair

Without the steps

and finally he landed in the whale's mouth

Well it was not much more friendly a place than before

It was damp and a little cold,

But in the corner of the cavenous chamber he saw a lamp

It was golden and shining

And so he picked it up.

A little dim patch caused his reflection to be obscured

And so he rubbed it clean

And as he did a Genie  appeared

In a puff of smoke and spin

The Genie float high above and then leaned in

Are you Aladdin?

Yes said the boy in answer to him

Well come now make a wish

And I will grant it


Aladdin thought, but spent too long for in that moment

The Whale sneezed and both were thrown out onto the rolling seas


With that the boy awoke from his sleep

And found himself nestled into a groove in the peat

Just below him some peat workers were chattin

Lucky for Aladdin he was hidden out of sight, and 

Then he saw near where he lay, a little hole made by a rabbit he would say

So he quietly crawled over and peered in

Aladdin he heard his name echo

Somewhere within

And drawn in further he leant and leant and leant until

Finally he fell head first down the peat well


If you have ever walked in peat you will know this is no light thing and 

That to fall in a sink hole can mean the death of you

So Aladdin was by now beginning to panic

He was head first in a tunnel

and he could see a rabbit but the more he tried to twist and free himself

The further down he slid until darkness seemed to overcome him

And finally he closed his eye lids

With a twitch of his nose he sneezed and awoke

He could see a little rabbit who seemed to laugh at a joke

And down in this chamber hidden deep under ground

He was stuck in the upper quarter of the ceiling of the burrow

Somehow he freed and arm and then pulled on a root

And this action brought him down without harm

But with a thump

The rabbits scattered then meekly peaked their heads out

Where am I he thought?

Am I under the swamp?

The chamber was bigg enough for him to crawl along

On his hands and knees and a strange glowing light of green

glowed from underneath the trees - their roots held some

Algae or perhaps laces of fungi

That glowed iridescent in the dark

Suddenly a glow worm spun down and said

Hello Aladdin, my name's spark

Spark showed Aladdin the way through the cave system

And into and underground wonderland

He could see sticking out of all the walls

lots of artefacts of ancient archaeology 

There were 16th century pistols used by highway men, there were 

Anglo-Saxon treasures of helmets and spears

There were Roman chariot wheels, and shields and old sandals

There were even some Roman Catholic candles


There were iron age devices and fires and stoves

And stone age pottery and glowing glass globes

There were Victorian furniture -tables and chairs

And medieval cannons and the skeletons of bears

And it was like a museum of preserved treasures of the past

But what caught Aladdin's eye was of course the last

A shining golden lamp that had something in it

So that when he gave it a tap somebody said stop it

And so he handled this lamp between his fingers

And began to polish its edges and peer under the lid

And finally he thought well thumb it, so he gave it a rub


With the rub spewed forth this ancient Genie

The Genius of the levels trapped in a bottle

Like a message he came out